


Random Acts of Life

by sloth



Category: Wonderfalls
Genre: Multi, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloth/pseuds/sloth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first dinner home after Jaye breaks out of the bell jar and her parents don't make her go back in, Sharon blurts out over Yvette's lamb chops, "I'm pregnant."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Random Acts of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chester Femme](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Chester+Femme).



The first dinner home after Jaye breaks out of the bell jar and her parents don’t make her go back in, Sharon blurts out over Yvette’s lamb chops, “I’m pregnant.” She probably thinks she can hide behind Jaye’s clinical insanity, but that news was so yesterday. Aaron’s mouth, already open to drop the relationship-bomb of his and Mahandra’s – engagement, commitment ceremony, whatever it was she wanted to call it – slowly closes. Jaye sips her water and puts on her group-therapy face. Sotto voce, she mutters, “A virgin birth. Been a while since that happened.”

 

...

 

First Karen moves in with Sharon, and then Sharon moves in with Jaye. “Mom thinks I’m shacking up with Falls’ tourists!” Sharon hisses. “She thinks I’m some sort of hussy!” She doesn’t glow with pregnancy; she has a kind of manic wildness moving around inside of her, result of having to go cold turkey without even the patch to ease her addict’s impulse.

 

“Well, to be fair, you’re a _lesbian_ hussy,” Jaye points out. She’s making up the couch. She would usually make Sharon sleep there pregnant or not, but you don’t get in the way of a detoxing attorney. “Did you tell your girlfriend yet?”

 

Sharon sighs and looks constipated. She probably is. Jaye’s heard pregnancy does weird things to women. “I have definitive proof she’s cheated on me, Jaye. She gave me an STD after all.”

 

Jaye’s impressed – she thought she was the only cynic in the family capable of referring to a fetus-parasite as a disease. “Yeah, well,” she says, and pats her sister’s shoulder. It does kind of suck that Sharon’s girlfriend’s ex-husband’s semen somehow managed to land inside Sharon’s uterus to impregnate her. Hopefully it won’t have his massive peanut allergy. “Mi trailer es su trailer.”

 

Sharon smiles at her, tremulous. “You’ve never been this nice to me, Jaye. I guess the electro shock really changed you.”

 

...

 

Karen finds Sharon the next day and harasses her into coming back to the family home, where Yvette coos over her and fixes her plates of crepes and freshly cut strawberries. Jaye tags along, mostly for the crepes. Their dad has already booked Sharon’s prenatal appointments with a noted obstetrician at the hospital, thoughtful even if he can’t quite look Sharon in the eye. “It’s not how we planned for this to happen, but that’s all right,” Karen says soothingly. She pets Sharon’s hair. Sharon relaxes. “Have you given any thought to a green card marriage?  Oh, nothing big, just a quick ceremony. Both of you get something out of it – he gets a work visa, you get to put a father’s name on the birth certificate...”

 

Sharon sighs and closes her eyes. Jaye eats her crepes and marvels that _she_ was the one they stuck in the asylum.

 

...

 

There’s cankles and bloating and a truly strange amount of breast-expansion, there’s Sharon waddling around and both her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s ex-husband hovering over her anxiously, there’s Aaron pestering Jaye about her maybe possibly potentially being the Second Coming of Christ – which, if he’d just look closer, he’d realize that there’s a better candidate about to join their family – there’s a surprising lack of morning sickness – and then there’s her.

 

“Oh, Sharon,” Karen says, misty-eyed behind the video camera lens. She’s taped the entire delivery. Sharon attempted to kill her for this many times, but got distracted by the contractions.

 

Aaron is holding his first niece, her newborn skull tiny in his hands, her face wrinkled and hands furled. He looks up, smiling, and asks, “Do you want to hold her?”

 

Jaye backs away, hands up and defensive. “No, no, no,” she says. “Also, no.” She glances sideways at the stuffed dolphin Sharon’s girlfriend’s ex-husband left on the nightstand, grimaces as if she’s just heard bad news, and then steps forward. “Well,” she says. “Um, okay.” She reaches for the baby likes she’s reaching for a bomb.

 

...

 

_Why do you talk to me_, Jaye asked once.

 

She was answered, _Because you listen_.

 

...

 

Her niece’s eyes open and look up at her. They’re like any other pair of newborn eyes. They’re saying nothing, but maybe the rest of the world is talking, the entire universe, because Jaye is hearing one perfect, clear, resounding note.

 

It sounds a lot like joy. 


End file.
